Character Competitive Impressions

[Shaya]

Perhaps too extreme a rhetoric, I was more exemplifying the point of it's "safety" rather than how you could wish shield worked and Mac's movement speed reliably covering rolls/dodges.

Repetitions of jab1 are often quite fast and automatic holding A. Shielding out of it or potentially clashing with his tilts or smashes.
In close quarter combat, you need not fear KO punch if you can be certain you'll outspeed the 9 frame start up. Shield stun on certain jabs is sufficient to stop him rolling in.

I've played both SoCal's monkey and ramin's in friendlies at apex.

 

[Big O]

This is not a good assumption considering that pretty much every formula has been ported from Brawl.

I only go by what experience and testing confirm to be true and as far as I can tell, KB and shield KB are unrelated. Whether or not that was the case in Brawl, I think actually testing it in game is more reliable than assumptions. Trying out a variety of moves of against a shielding Luigi leads me to believe that damage is the only actual factor in shield KB.

 

[TriTails]

Little Mac's ground game~
6. Bar rage, Mac's smashes are all unsafe on shield.

More like Mac's smashes are all unsafe on spotdodges.

Yes, if you main someone like Luigi, either you perfect shield, spotdodge or rolls, or just plain eat the shield KB.

That said, there is always the sliding spotdodge~ (Or something like that, dash cancel to spotdodge works somewhat a bit on Luigi).

Now that I think about it. Majority of Mac's attacks gets punished harshly by spotdodges. His options are only holding jab... and D-tilts... holding out your smashes... and that's it.

Even the F-tilt (So far his best grounded move) can be spotdodged.

Though, I am the one to talk *Points at mains bar*.

Oh and also, I feel pity for LM getting his KO Uppercut interrupted by a single lemon.

 

[Kofu]

Um... Dtilt is probably her best tilt overall. Sure it's not that strong or really leads to anything
except edge-guarding, but it recovers quick enough to make it a good footsie tool (and it lasts just
long enough to beat rolls and spotdodges with good timing). Not to mention that if you manage to clank
something with it, you can actually get a punish out of it, unlike the others which are too slow.

You don't really clank with FTilt; you either hit her or the attack keeps going. Don't remember if that's true for her other tilts.

@ Thinkaman I knew about most of those things, although maybe not consciously (like UAir having IASA before autocancel windows) and I think you're mostly right; her moves are weird that keep them from being complete garbage despite various poor things about them.

More SHAC aerials would be great in general.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Okay, so after playing Fox for a long while, am I the only one that sometimes gets this little slide after a falling Bair?

 

[Antonykun]

Well, at the current knockback values, yes. 100 growth is asinine for a 17% hitbox.

This thought experiment is intentionally ridiculous, but the point is that even when it does 17% (which is absurd, more than her uncharged fsmash), Palutena d-tilt is still a crappy hitbox frame 14 move. That's f-smash tier speed, without the benefit of being able to hold a charge to punish various things.



Anyway, while we are playing this game, ponder solutions to the only problem that really needs fixing: Zelda's 1v1 game.

• Phantom Slash charge can now be stored. (a la DK, Lucario, or Robin)
• Phantom Slash charge can now be merely shield canceled. (a la Deep Breathing)
• Phantom Slash release can be b-reversed.
• Phantom Slash has liberally less endlag.

How good would each of these be? The first is clearly the most powerful, and the last depends heavily on the numerical specifics. But I am highly convinced that this (Phantom) is the only simple path to fixing what might be the only truly significant balance problem in the game. Phantom is a legitimately great move if not for the nagging detail that it is ruined by just getting out of the way, which can be done on reaction. (It's safe on block and beats dodges when charged!)

now I'm curious, if you were to play that game what would you buff from Swordfighter?

 

[HeroMystic]

Perhaps too extreme a rhetoric, I was more exemplifying the point of it's "safety" rather than how you could wish shield worked and Mac's movement speed reliably covering rolls/dodges.

Repetitions of jab1 are often quite fast and automatic holding A. Shielding out of it or potentially clashing with his tilts or smashes.
In close quarter combat, you need not fear KO punch if you can be certain you'll outspeed the 9 frame start up. Shield stun on certain jabs is sufficient to stop him rolling in.

I've played both SoCal's monkey and ramin's in friendlies at apex.

You're underestimating Little Mac's setups in KO Punch.

Dtilt x2 > KO Punch is guaranteed at low percents.
Jab 1 > KO Punch is legit on fast-fallers IIRC.
N-air > KO Punch is guaranteed.

Out of all of them, Dtilt is his best one. Great range and safe on block.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Good Macs seldom cut loose with a primed KO punch without setting up into it. Not to say that it doesn't happen, though, 'cause I'm definitely guilty of YOLO KO Punches when I play him.

It's a terrible addiction I have.

Smooth Criminal

 

[meleebrawler]

You don't really clank with FTilt; you either hit her or the attack keeps going. Don't remember if that's true for her other tilts.

@ Thinkaman I knew about most of those things, although maybe not consciously (like UAir having IASA before autocancel windows) and I think you're mostly right; her moves are weird that keep them from being complete garbage despite various poor things about them.

More SHAC aerials would be great in general.

That's kind of what I meant: since her Dtilt doesn't get canceled out by anything
like all of her other tilts and being her fastest, it's the only one that can really take advantage
of the mechanic.

Saying you want more SHAC aerials seems dangerously close to wanting the game
to be more like Melee, where EVERY aerial is basically autocancelable thanks to L-canceling.
You're dreaming if you expect things like lightning kicks, knees or thunder stomps to be thrown out
recklessly these days.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Good Macs seldom cut loose with a primed KO punch without setting up into it. Not to say that it doesn't happen, though, 'cause I'm definitely guilty of YOLO KO Punches when I play him.

It's a terrible addiction I have.

Smooth Criminal

But at least it looks cool when you pull it off :3

 

[Smog Frog]

i cant be the only one who goes for a ballsy roll read w/ my ko punches.

 

[warionumbah2]

Soon everyone and their mothers will have a pocket . All pocket Macs will be slayed by this former deity.

 

[Chuva]

It would be interesting to at least evaluate Mac's MUs against the popular competitive characters if we are to have a preliminary understanding of his usefulness as a counterpick.

That I know of, he does ok against Fox and Rosalina, loses to Sonic, Mario, Ness and Falcon, probably slightly disadvantage against ZSS, even against the Pits. No idea about the rest (Diddy, Sheik, Pikachu etc)

 

[Antonykun]

It would be interesting to at least evaluate Mac's MUs against the popular competitive characters if we are to have a preliminary understanding of his usefulness as a counterpick.

That I know of, he does ok against Fox and Rosalina, loses to Sonic, Mario, Ness and Falcon, probably slightly disadvantage against ZSS, even against the Pits. No idea about the rest (Diddy, Sheik, Pikachu etc)

Loses to Sanic? I don't play mac I'm just curious.

 

[ShiekShallKill]

All you need to do is throw Mac off the Stage

 

[Antonykun]

All you need to do is throw Mac off the Stage

Good luck

 

[RIP_Lucas]

Loses to Sanic? I don't play mac I'm just curious.

Some actually consider Mac to be a decent counter pick to Sonic with his instant Jab stopping spin dash and Spring Jump not always sweet spotting the edge immediately. Also, Sonic's Dash and Homing Attack can be countered by the no flinch f and up smashes respectively, often netting easy kills at low percents.

The problem is that Sonic's down throw and back throw are great at getting mac off stage, and grabs are easy to get by baiting counters/air dodges and punishing. Sonic can also juggle mac for hours off a dash attack or up throw, and he's fast and small enough to avoid KO punch a lot.

Basically, the better player wins that match up 90% of the time, and 90% of Little Mac's I play are not better players

Source: Me, a Sonic Main

 

[Smooth Criminal]

All you need to do is throw Mac off the Stage

Good luck

Yeah, have fun trying to do that against a Mac with good neutral. You're likely the one who'll get bopped, not him.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Antonykun]

Yeah, have fun trying to do that against a Mac with good neutral. You're likely the one who'll get bopped, not him.

Smooth Criminal

Little Mac dies WAY later than everyone gives him credit for.

 

[Nu~]

When your smash attack does your shield's job better...
you aren't going to fall so easily.

 

[mimgrim]

All you need to do is throw Mac off the Stage

When will this misconception, that a terrible recovery means a bad character, end.

 

[HeroMystic]

It is a heavy weakness though.

Players in general need to get much more aggressive with their edgeguarding.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Little Mac dies WAY later than everyone gives him credit for.

Certainly not by virtue of his weight class, but rather how tenacious he has to be playing the neutral game. Good Macs play their character like a ****ing fireball-less shoto from SF, only instead of spacing low shorts and standing roundhouses, we got dtilts and jabs and armored smash attacks.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Smog Frog]

When will this misconception, that a terrible recovery means a bad character, end.

actually the misconception doesnt exist, considering falco is #2 in melee

 

[Smooth Criminal]

It is a heavy weakness though.

Players in general need to get much more aggressive with their edgeguarding.

If I get a Mac off the stage, he's usually done for. Sometimes at low percentages, however, I've had some Macs go for their Counter if they're coming in from on high. That's the only time that I exercise caution in edgeguarding him. Sometimes I read it, sometimes I don't.

Smooth Criminal

 

[mimgrim]

It is a heavy weakness though.

Not really a heavy weakness. I will not deny that it isn't a weakness but it is no where near being a crippling weakness (which is basically what heavy implies from how I read it) if a character is bad it will never be beause of their recovery but of what else they have on top of their recovery.

actually the misconception doesnt exist, considering falco is #2 in melee

Falco's recovery in Melee isn't even that bad. Up Special might have short distance but it still has like 8 possible mix-ups to it along with a good Side Special adding a 9th mix-up + his DJ height is good too. It's not fantastic but in the context of Melee it ain't bad, Project M is a different story though.

If you want to use a top tier example from another smash game my thoughts would automatically go to Melee Sheik or Brawl Olimar since literally all you have to do against them is hog the ledge.

 

[Antonykun]

actually the misconception doesnt exist, considering falco is #2 in melee

It sure as hell exists for mac

 

[RIP_Lucas]

Little Mac has more than just bad recovery going against him. There's also a relative lack of variety to his approach. Without any air game, all he can do is charge at his opponent. Players work around this by dashing into shield, rolling back in neutral, "dash dancing," and a couple other things, but fast character or characters with low lag projectiles can wall him out or beat him at his own game. Shiek in particular seems like an auto lose match up because needles stops his approach, and knocks him into the air where he can be Fair combo'd off the stage and gimped. Having that bad of a match up to a fairly common tournament character is devastating to his overall variety.

Little Mac really isn't anything more than a good counterpick for a couple characters, he isn't a character that you should really consider maining.

 

[HeroMystic]

Not really a heavy weakness. I will not deny that it isn't a weakness but it is no where near being a crippling weakness (which is basically what heavy implies from how I read it) if a character is bad it will never be beause of their recovery but of what else they have on top of their recovery.

Heavy Weakness to me, means it is exploitable and cannot be covered. Mac's options are weak off-stage, and he can only cover himself with Slip Counter, which is a 50/50 chance for him as well since activating counter kills his air speed, making him a sitting duck for just about anything.

Doc's recovery is a weakness, but it is not a heavy weakness because he can cover it by saving his double jump and using Tornado's absurd hitboxes to cover any aerial edgeguarding. Mac has nothing like that. His best method to avoid getting gimped is to not be thrown off stage in the first place.

 

[Chuva]

Loses to Sanic? I don't play mac I'm just curious.

• Sonic's BAir and FAir can both outrange some of Mac's best spacing moves, BAir doubles as a kill move
• Sonic's FTilt beats Mac's FTilt cleanly if properly spaced (Mac's extended FTilt hitbox starts on frame 12, as opposed to Sonic's starting on frame 8 which has nearly the same range)
  
• BThrow can seal Mac's stock at mid %s
• Slip Counter whiffs on a lot of moves because of Sonic safeness
  
• Sonic has quite a bunch of good horizontal KB moves (FSmash, FTilt, BAir, FAir, Homing Attack, BThrow), getting hit by any of them at mid-high % can cost a stock if Sonic decides to follow up
  
• Mac can't capitalize on any favorable trade in the neutral because Sonic can just reset it back safely. Normally that applies to 90% of the characters in this game, but for a character that relies so much on risk vs reward like Mac, it can be really frustrating for his gameplan.
• One of Mac's biggest strengths is his repositioning onstage. With his top notch ground speed and fast normals, his ability to poke people safely is great. Needless to say, Sonic out-speeds him and can punish things some characters can't.

Mac can actually halt Sonic's bread and butter approaches quite well with rapid jab and Fsmash/Usmash, but Sonic can always feint approaches and play bait and punish with the aerial mobility he has from his B moves (where Mac can't touch him) until he lands a stray BAir, FAir or Homing Attack. Risk vs Reward simply seems to be in Sonic's favor, and unless it's a flowchart Sonic doing predictable approaches, Mac has to play defensively and there isn't much he can do to maximize his good reads because it's Sonic.



And for future Mac discussion: Please, just drop the day 1 fallacy "just throw him offstage". At least try to point out how you intend to do this, or explain how does given character interacts with Mac's tools in order to put Mac in an unfavorable situation.

 

[Gunla]

Heavy Weakness to me, means it is exploitable and cannot be covered. Mac's options are weak off-stage, and he can only cover himself with Slip Counter, which is a 50/50 chance for him as well since activating counter kills his air speed, making him a sitting duck for just about anything.

Doc's recovery is a weakness, but it is not a heavy weakness because he can cover it by saving his double jump and using Tornado's absurd hitboxes to cover any aerial edgeguarding. Mac has nothing like that. His best method to avoid getting gimped is to not be thrown off stage in the first place.

Indeed. Doc's tornado is a really good tool at getting you vertical distance to better recovery. Wind Tornado increases it further... and Clothesline makes it much, much worse.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Indeed. Doc's tornado is a really good tool at getting you vertical distance to better recovery. Wind Tornado increases it further... and Clothesline makes it much, much worse.

Doc Nado is more for horizontal distance this game.

Rising Tornado can be a surprisingly good KO juggle move, just throwing that out there.

 

[Djent]

Does anyone else think could actually end up with a positive MU ratio vs.? As @Tagxy has already mentioned, his ground game gives Pika some serious issues. On top of that, Fox's jab combo works from 70% and combos into USmash at kill%. So there's a huge disparity in kill power in this MU as well.

I honestly kind of hope it's true, sinceis literally Satan and it'd be poetic revenge from Brawl. Speaking of Brawl,

Soon everyone and their mothers will have a pocket . All pocket Macs will be slayed by this former deity.

If there's one thing that could actually make this game Brawl 2.0, this'd be it.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

now I'm curious, if you were to play that game what would you buff from Swordfighter?

Might as well ask yourself what you think is wrong about SF to begin with and if to consider customs/weight or not.

I feel like Shuriken of light helps him a lot from the start.
Sword fighter has 6 movement specials, 3 projectile specials and 3 punishment tools in Blurring Blade, Blade Counter and his cape. At default Gale strike doesn't really do much for him, Power Spin opens up his edge-guard options, His side specials aren't a big deal regardless of which you take but with Shuriken on board you don't really need Chakram. All 3 of his down specials are decent.

His aerials are fine. B-air, N-air and U-air AC well. D-air is significant off-stage anyways, and F-air has the reach to justify it. His Dtilt is actually fast, solid range as is his Down Smash. His grab speed is already top of the line, but grap range is meh. His throw damage sucks, but it's meagre given that without correct DI he can true combo his D-throw to U-air on some characters for that 20% anyways. Jab is booty, but Dtilt pretty much covers it anyways. His DA is fine as well. His movement speed is nothing special but he practically has everything he needs from his normals anyways except for maybe higher damage.

If customs are to be ignored, he needs Gale strike to I dunno be credible? He isn't like TLink or Link who can think of trying to zone out *some* characters and punish the approach, he just wants a projectile with enough merit to say "approach me so we can do this dance", Chakram/Shuriken kind of achieve this, Gale strike doesn't because he's just going to get punished if he tries to throw it out against notable characters.


I must still be in the twilight zone because to me Sword Fighter can hang with Marth, Ike, Shulk and Toon Link as soon as Gale strike and Stone Scabbard get replaced in customs.

I feel if those two specific moves were buffed, his 1111 kit would actually work.

 

[mimgrim]

Heavy Weakness to me, means it is exploitable and cannot be covered. Mac's options are weak off-stage, and he can only cover himself with Slip Counter, which is a 50/50 chance for him as well since activating counter kills his air speed, making him a sitting duck for just about anything.

Doc's recovery is a weakness, but it is not a heavy weakness because he can cover it by saving his double jump and using Tornado's absurd hitboxes to cover any aerial edgeguarding. Mac has nothing like that. His best method to avoid getting gimped is to not be thrown off stage in the first place.

I absolutely hate using comparisons to past games but I feel like in this case it should work fine and get my point across.

In Melee when Sheik is sent off stage by the opponent she has 2 options when recovering, go for the ledge or go for the stage. One will incur easily punishable lag while the other is defeated by simply grabbing the ledge, both options can be covered by the opponent by simply grabbing the ledge. Still a top 6 character though. Her recovery in Melee has basically as much as Mac's, you could actually argue less because she can only recover that one way whereas Mac can, at the very least, mix-up between Side Special and Up Special while also being able to try an cover himself with Counter while also not having to worry about the opponent grabbing the ledge because of it's mechanics in this game.

In Brawl Olimar is the 3rd/4th best character in the game (depends on who you ask but according to the last official tier list for the game he's 3rd) but also has the worst recovery in the game. All he can do is go for the stage without using Chain and cover himself with Whitsle or go for Chain in which all the opponent has to do is grab the ledge. He's just as limited.

For both these characters in their respective games they had just as much coverage as Mac for their recoveries but it was still never a major weakness for them. It just meant they had to not get sent off-stage.

I don't believe any recovery can be a major weakness because the true major weakness will be something else just piled on to of the recovery.

 

[Djent]

Olimar's super armor on whistle kept him from having a truly terrible recovery. And although Sheik's recovery is predictable, she's arguably still better off than Falcon and Marth. She also benefits from invincibility on regrab more than any other character in Melee (besides maybe Puff). I don't think Mac's situation is truly comparable.

 

[Dabuz]

Just chiming in, Olimar's recovery was solid. By being floaty and light he was able to get back to the stage without using up-B through proper use of DI. He also could whistle armor attempts to hit him offstage. The up-B chain came out fast and had potentially a lot of range. He was able to up-air people off the ledge before grabbing it. Pikminless up-B gave him lots of distance. So despite in theory getting bodied offstage, top level Olimars were rarely killed early because he actually had solid recovery options, the real issue was that Olimar would die for making even the tiniest mistake offstage.

 

[NairWizard]

Does anyone else think could actually end up with a positive MU ratio vs.? As @Tagxy has already mentioned, his ground game gives Pika some serious issues. On top of that, Fox's jab combo works from 70% and combos into USmash at kill%. So there's a huge disparity in kill power in this MU as well.

I wouldn't say that there's a huge disparity when Fox's recovery is one of the more easily abused in the game, and Fox is also light, a fastfaller, and vulnerable to SH aerials. Pikachu does hate Fox's jabs and dash attacks with a passion, but Fox also hates to be offstage at all. When he side-bs you can basically make a 50:50 guess on whether he's going for the ledge or the stage and hit him back off, and if he ever up-bs, b-air will send him flying away.

Battlefield is the worst stage to take Fox to because it increases his landing options. On Battlefield, I'd say advantage 60:40 Fox.

On flat stages, it's 60:40 Pikachu.

Town and City is kind of a mixed bag and I'd go with 50:50.

 

[Thinkaman]

Just chiming in, Olimar's recovery was solid. By being floaty and light he was able to get back to the stage without using up-B through proper use of DI. He also could whistle armor attempts to hit him offstage. The up-B chain came out fast and had potentially a lot of range. He was able to up-air people off the ledge before grabbing it. Pikminless up-B gave him lots of distance. So despite in theory getting bodied offstage, top level Olimars were rarely killed early because he actually had solid recovery options, the real issue was that Olimar would die for making even the tiniest mistake offstage.

Right, put Olimar side-by-side with Ivysaur and it becomes pretty obvious.

 

[HeroMystic]

In Melee when Sheik is sent off stage by the opponent she has 2 options when recovering, go for the ledge or go for the stage. One will incur easily punishable lag while the other is defeated by simply grabbing the ledge, both options can be covered by the opponent by simply grabbing the ledge. Still a top 6 character though. Her recovery in Melee has basically as much as Mac's, you could actually argue less because she can only recover that one way whereas Mac can, at the very least, mix-up between Side Special and Up Special while also being able to try an cover himself with Counter while also not having to worry about the opponent grabbing the ledge because of it's mechanics in this game.

Melee is an entirely different story from Smash 4 but the reason why this doesn't work is because you're looking at this in a vaccum. Look at all the competitively viable characters, and tell me which character has the best recovery. Out of all of them, it is Jiggs. She's not the best in the game by a pretty good margin. Next is Peach, who is definitely not the best.

Now look at Sheik, Fox, Falco, Marth, and Falcon. They all have pretty horrid recoveries. The reason why they're so good is because their neutral game and advantaged stage is top notch and amazing. Melee is extremely momentum-based and the neutral game doesn't have as much emphasis as it does in Smash 4. Recoveries doesn't matter much when everyone has a poor recovery.

Also, don't misinterpret what I'm saying. I'm not saying Little Mac is bad because of his recovery. I'm saying his poor recovery is very exploitable and can change a solid lead into an even match or snowball out of his control. The emphasis on his poor recovery is overstated most of the time (you have to get him off the stage first, which can be a tiring task in of itself), but it's not something that should be ignored.